Our searches are getting longer:  over the last year longer search queries (over 5 words) has gone up 10%.

And as you would expect, the number of short queries (1 or 2 word phrases) has fallen an average of 4%.

This is good news for small businesses looking optimise their websites.  It means your customers are searching for more specific phrases, and your business stands a fighting chance for ranking well for these longer phrases.

This forms part of your “long tail” keyword strategy.  One option would be to optimise for phrases that have lots of searches, but also face lots of competition. These phrases typically  comprise just one or two words, for example “solicitor” or “hotel.”  Your chance of ranking well for these phrases?  Nil. The chance the customer really wants your specific business?  Low.

The alternative, or the “long tail” is to optimise for those more specific phrases that show intention on the part of the searcher.  There will be fewer searches taking place, but there will also be less competition, and thus a chance of ranking well in Google.

If somebody is searching for “short break golfing luxury guest house” then are they showing intention to buy?  Yes.  Does the right business stand a chance of ranking well in the search results?  Yup.  Are there lots of people searching for this phrase?  Nope, but capturing those few, perfect searches will be highly profitable for that business.

And this recent Hitwise data confirms yet again that it is worth the effort going for those long tail phases.

Hitwise tracked 10 million US users, but I think it would be reasonable to draw some conclusions regarding our British behaviour.

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Google Maps no longer limits its display to the top 10 business  listings in its Maps display.

In addition to the top 10 companies, plotted on the map with a little tear dropped shaped pin labelled A to J, Google now also displays clusters of  additional little circles with click throughs to all the other local companies.

This means customers can discover more businesses like yours, and it makes the Local Business directory even more useful.

Here is the distibution of plumbers in Nottingham on Google Maps, and by the way, it is worth noting that either there is a shortage of plumbers in certain neighborhoods, or they haven’t added their plumbing business to the directory:

Further Reading:

Learn how to make your own Google Map

Learn more at the Google Lat Long Blog

What does your business do? If I were to limit you to just 25 words, would you be able to delight me with your business proposition?

Stop right now and think: are you able rattle off a succinct sentence that conveys the breadth and depth of what you do, as well as make it clear what makes your business special, and the benefits you offer me?

And do you have that 25 word statement slapped prominently on your web site home page?

The lack of a simple, clear statement like this breaks a number of cardinal rules of web design:

• Don’t make me think. I don’t want to hunt around to figure out what you do. If I can’t see it straight away, then I’m hitting the back button.
• Don’t assume I know your business. You know what you do, but I don’t. So make it simple for me, and tell me what you do.
• Don’t keep your light under a bushel.  You know your business is great, so go right ahead and tell me.  Tell me the benefits of using your business rather than your competitors.

This 25 word statement isn’t just for your Internet marketing. As they say, there is nothing new under the sun, and this statement means you have a handle on your business.  It might form part of your marketing collateral, or your elevator pitch (That’s the 30 seconds you get to clinch the deal with me if we were trapped in a lift together. Heaven forbid.)

Your 25 word statement is essential in Internet marketing because:
• My attention span is short on the web, I’m scanning your website, so keep it short and sweet
• Your statement is very likely to be naturally keyword rich, which will help in your search engine optimisation. And if it isn’t keyword rich because it is full of waffle, or using those wasteful words like “quality” or “solutions” then rethink your statement.
• You can reuse the statement when it comes time to include a description of your website in directories, or as part of your pen picture.

So, what exactly is is that you do?

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Facebook, of course, is a social networking site for individuals.  But Facebook also provides tools specifically aimed for businesses that you can use to create a presence for the company, rather than for an individual

Your personal  Profile is what you are most familiar with.  This is your personal account, using your real name.  Your profile page can contain a link to your business website, and your profile is the gateway to all the networking opportunities on Facebook.  Facebook stipulates that your can have just one account, it must be your real name, and it it is for you personally, it cannot be your business  name.

Remember, the details of your personal Profile is only available to other Facebook users.

For businesses, you can create a specific Page that has a focus on the company rather than you as a private individual.  It is all a bit confusing, because a Page (capital P) is a different type of Facebook content then your Profile.

Your Facebook Page is open and available to anyone, you do not need to be logged into Facebook to see your business information.

You can add your logo to your Page, and a description, and all the usual Facebook applications like photos, videos, events, Discussion and Wall.

Rather than Friends, your Page will have Fans.  The exciting marketing opportunity this presents you with the ability to send email marketing messages to your Fans. You don’t want to alienate the Fans who love your business by sending out Spam, but a few well targeted messages a few times a year (special offers? new product announcements?) is an opportunity not to be missed.

By way of comparison:

Here is my Susan Hallam Facebook Profile

And here is my (rather poor) Hallam Commnications Facebook Page

If you are looking for inspiration, then take a look at this collection of example Facebook Pages

And of course a successful Facebook page is all about building and nurturing the community of users are interested in your business.

Here’s the link to get started creating your Business Facebook Page:  you will need to select a business cateogry that cannot be changed later, so be careful!  And be sure to make your name keyword rich to help your search engine optimisation efforts, for example Joe’s Plumbing: Nottingham Emergency Plumbers

Read more at:

• Facebook for Business
• 10 Facebook Business Applications
• Half Geek Facebook for Business

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Your business leaves “footprints” all over the Internet.  Some of these footprints are your own which you can control, like your business website.  But many footprints are generated by other people who are commenting, reviewing, complimenting or complaining about your business.

A simple search on Google will uncover references to your business, but it isn’t terribly efficient at searching user generated content that forms the social Internet.

You might want to keep an eye on your company name, your products, your main employees, and indeed you might want to keep an eye on the competition.

SocialMention is a social media search engine, gathering information from a wide range of user generated content sites.  It will let you know if you’ve been mentioned on Twitter, or if people have bookmarked you on Delicious or Digg, whether they’ve written about you in their blog or written blog comments about you, published photos , report back on news stories, and will even let you know about YouTube videos or podcasts that mention you.

But I have to say it does not provide a comprehensive service:  for example it didn’t find me on Twitter or LinkedIn or Twitter, nor did it find my news or search Flickr images.

Social Media Firehose: This is a another social media search service using Yahoo Pipes. It taps into a range of social media search APIs directly, so it’s much more immediate and comprehensive than say, Google alerts. Available from @ http://tinyurl.com/firehose

But if you want a comprehensive overview then you should snoop around then you still need to use a number of additional sources:

• Serph.com is another social search aggregator
• Blogpulse is proivded by Nielsen BuzzMetrics and searches the blogosphere
• Trackur.com are offering a free 14 day trial

Google Alerts is a free alerting service that will email you when it discovers your key phrase being mentioned on the wider Google search network including blogs, news, videos.

And you might want to go straight to the horses’ mouth and use the search facilities on each service, for example search.twitter.com or blogsearch.google.com

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I will be running a seminar at the Women in Business Conference on the 5th of March,  showering the delegates with 60 Tips in 60 Minutes. I have whipped up sixty cracking Internet marketing hints and tips, covering all the latest Internet trends.  There will be something for everybody, and it should be good fun!

The whole day looks great, with an inspired conference speaker line up including:

• Rachel Elnaugh of Dragon’s Den fame
• ” Secret Millionaire” Kavita Obero
• Tomorrow’s  World  Maggie Philbin
• Explorer/adventurer Karen Darke

It’s a full day event taking place at Pride Park in Derby, and I have to say one that I’m very much looking forward to.

Is it worth buying a link building package from an SEO company?

My maibox is awash with spam emails from Indian companies selling me a link building service. But today, my daily does of spam was accompanied by a rather sad little Tweet saying a Nottingham search marketing professional had been made redundant from her local web design agency.

And she was contemplating the influx of cheap SEO services from India.  Indeed, go to Google and search for SEO India and you’ll find dozens of companies advertising cheap link building packages.

Small businesses are tempted to buy these cheap services, but there is nothing new under the sun, and as they say “you get what you pay for.”  Cheap service could well mean cheap links, which  won’t help your rankings, and could possible do harm.

We all know that inbound links influence your rankings in Google.  But it isn’t the quantity of links, it’s the quality that does the influencing.

Every week I see examples of small business web sites that are ranking well in Google for their desired key phrases, they haven’t been playing the SEO game, and the site has only a few inbound links.  Lurking in that list of links, however, will be the one or two golden links that are doing all the influencing of the results:  trustworthy, authoritative, relevant sites linking in.  These links arise naturally because of the business’ position in the community.

Will an SEO consultant in India be able to get you links from your local borough council?  From your local university?  From your professional association or accrediting bodies?  Will the get you coverage in the BBC or Forbes or your professional press?

Be as careful in making the decision to use an Indian SEO company, as you would be careful in buying any service in the UK.

They all describe themselves as providing “ethical link building” – which should alert you to the fact that unethical link building will do more harm than good.

A quick survey of clients listed on some Indian firms are showing potentially poor quality link building activities. I took a look at their reference sites, and here is an example of the kinds of reciprocal links pages they are currently building.  Think nasty, cheap link exchanging at its worst:

India Link Building SEO service

My advice? Buyer Beware.

Google is looking for high quality links, and my first port of call would be to get a through understanding of the authoritative sites in your sector. Getting just a few perfect links will far outweigh dozens or hundreds of scammy, useless links.  You are probably better off using a professional, local SEO for just a few hours than getting into a long term contract with an offshore SEO firm.

Use a PR agency that has a sound understanding of how Google works to improve your profile, and drive visitors and links at the same time.  I believe PR agencies are better at link building than web designers and more likely to get you those all important quality links than a foreign agency.

And finally, remember that Google has a long memory.  What might be considered “ethical” but sailing close to the wind might get you slapped or banned by Google as it tweaks and adjusts its ranking algorithm.

Would you like me to take a look at your website, and write up a review of the kinds of improvements I think you should make?

For £100 + VAT I’m offering a one hour review of websites during which I’ll take a look at your:

• search engine optimisation
• usability of your site
• legal compliance
• and give a general warts and all review

I’ve been offering this service to delegates when I speak at conferences, and I’ve been surprised at the demand.

Don’t expect a fancy-dancy report;  I’d rather spend my hour writing up plain speaking analysis of specific steps I think you could take to improve your site.  And if your feelings are easily hurt, then this might not be the report for you!

The kinds of people who have requested the report include companies who are:

• wanting to improve their rankings in the search engines
• doubting whether they are getting value for money from their search marketing agency
• needing a plan of action to use with their web designer
• planning a new website redesign
• wanting to improve the conversion rate on their websites

Get in t0uch by dropping me an email or use the Contact Us form on the website.  Tell me a little bit about your business and what’s going on with your website.

And I’ll get back to you by return to get the ball rolling.

Everybody uses Google, everybody trusts Google.  But when Google makes a mistake, it can have huge repercussions.  And for most of us, we just trust Google implicitly.  Is this a good thing?  Do we have the skills to recognise when Google is experiencing a technical glitch, and find a way to work around the problem?

Google’s most recent problems started over the weekend with Google briefly flagging every site in its search results as containing malware, and possibly damaging your computer.  If you didn’t experience it then see the screen shot later in this post.  It also meant if you tried to click through to the site, you would bump up against a warning message from Google denying you access to the site.

The bug happened on Saturday afternoon, and during my searching it appeared that Kings College London was distributing malware.  I have to say I was not impressed. My daughter hopes to go there, but Google’s pronouncement genuinely had a negative  impact on my impression of what is in reality a top class university.  Google says… malware.

What if somebody were searching for your business during this glitch? Every prospective customer would have thought your site was distributing malware.  And they are probably not reading an explanation like this to say it just wasn’t your fault, and ignore what Google says,  that actually you are a very nice company.

Google promptly, and erroneously, pointed the finger of blame at StopBadware.org but in the end admitted it was because some Google human added the entry of a single slash (/) to the list of malware sites.  Single slash, of course, means every site on the Internet.

Isn’t amazing how much we trust Google? Sites that rank well must be good.  Sites that Google flag as dangerous.. are dangerous.

Google also seems to be having a range of technical problems ranging from sending out unwanted text messages to its people who use their SMS Text Search facility, to rogue documents appearing in Google Docs.  Search Engine Land has a good summary of some of this week’s problems.

It’s not been a good week for Google, but credit where credit is due:  they do get the problems fixed.  I know It is easy to criticise from the peanut gallery, but as an organisation built on trust we come to expect nothing but the best from Google.

Thanks to Techcrunch for this image of what people saw during the Malware glitch:

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